Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Archive 14

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What names do indigenous people care about

There has been a massive dust-up (well, for wiki standards) about the proper name for the article currently at Bradley Manning - one of the big claims is, this person will be harmed if we have the article at their old name, therefore it must move to their new name - and sources don't really matter that much it seems (although in the Manning case, sources have moved). My question for this board is, if this is indeed a principle which is being espoused by a large number of editors, how could that sentiment impact the names of articles for indigenous peoples, like Squamish or others. Can we put together a list of names for indigenous groups that those groups themselves consider "harmful" or "offensive" or "irritating", even if they are "more common"? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:58, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Challenges with identifying truly offensive names is that there is widespread disagreement. One week someone will come along demanding everything be named "Indigenous peoples," next week someone else wants "Native American," the week after "American Indian." Multiple that by a thousand times within each tribe. Someone hated the term "Kumeyaay" on week but couldn't be bothered to explain why, when several Kumeyaay tribes use that term and exact spelling in their official name. Autonyms can be problematic when the majority of the tribe doesn't use them anyone and people have a wide variety of spellings. Ethnologue is a good published source for truly offensive names for ethnic groups (e.g. they point out that "Digger" is a perjorative term for Maidu)—which should then be avoided. The best rule of thumb is use the terms that the tribes publish on their websites, in their official legal names, names their museums and other community centers, etc., in their tribal newspapers, i.e. what's found in published sources.
That said, did you have anything specific in mind, other than Squamish people? -Uyvsdi (talk) 00:30, 2 October 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
I just seem to recall Skookum had a list of them he was trying, often unsuccessfully, to fix. But we have the head of the WMF publicly posting blogs extolling the value of self-determination of identity, so my thought was, fine, let's apply that to indigenous tribes, if we can find examples where (a) tribe X prefers the name X and (b) wikipedia title is Y, which is more common--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:49, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm with Uyvsdi, we need to do our very best to call people what they want to be called. BLP applies to cultures as much as individuals, IMHO. Where there is an internal dispute, then "teach the controversy" and explain it in the article in question, defaulting to whichever name will cause the least "drahmanz" (if possible). I am not up enough on the issues concerning Canadian First Nations people that Skookum1 was raising to know if he was voicing the views of the affected people themselves or if it was an internal political dogfight, but overall, yes, legal name + people's expressed preferences should keep you mostly in line, particularly if you are double careful with any other names or nicknames given people by outsiders. Thanks for checking in! Montanabw(talk) 03:22, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure if people agree that BLP applies to groups of people. I think there is some sympathy, but I haven't seen much advocacy from WMF on this front. The first step is to try to see the scale/scope of the problem. Do you know of any egregious cases, right now? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:25, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Mostly just the dismissive tone overall and the "who cares what these obscure, invisible anachronisms from the past want?" attitude. Uyvsdi can probably pull specific examples. Seems like Native people are the one group where racism and stereotyping is OK, even amongst those who should know better. For me, just going on a hunt and destroy mission for the overuse and inappropriate use of the word "Chief" to describe every leader, whether that term was officially granted by a tribe or not, is illustrative. That and if a clueless white 17th-century naturalist said it, then it must be a RS and true and repeated on wikipedia... sigh. Montanabw(talk) 03:32, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any pressing problems with current articles' names but for general writing, some examples I can think of for preferred names, that have actually been an issue in the past, are:

  • Ancestral Pueblo peoples <- Anasazi
  • Kwakwaka'wakw <- Kwakiutl
  • Nuxalk people <- Bella Coola
  • Odawa <- Ottawa
  • Ohkay Owingeh <- San Juan Pueblo
  • Tohono O'odham <- Papago.

Most of these are solved problems, which exception of Kwakiutl that I just stumbled upon. -Uyvsdi (talk) 02:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Disruptive IP and genocide

I would appreciate more eyes on this situation. 88.104.219.76 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) User has been hitting many articles that deal with genocide against Indigenous peoples, removing sourced content that documents genocide, and removing examples of genocide, usually saying "it's not important enough" to mention. Editor is tendentious, prone to edit-warring, and has been warned for disruptive editing by multiple editors. Though you have to look at users talk page history to see this, as s/he has been removing the warnings. - Slàn, Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 01:23, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

You accuse me of removing sourced content when your last edit [1], all you did was remove the sources I added. Do you not see how you are being slightly hypocritical here. Literally all you removed in the last edit was sourced content and you changed controversial claims of genocide to fact which is NPOV. The sources I added were not remotely controversial either. Can you give specific reasons as to why each of sources you removed merited removal. 88.104.219.76 (talk) 02:02, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Your addition of a couple sources came along with your persistent degradation of the text and deletion of examples of genocide, something you've been doing as you've POV-pushed on many articles, and been warned about by many editors. I support neutral editors checking the added sources and seeing if they are suitable to re-add, without the POV alterations. As it is, I reverted back to the stable version from before you began your edit-warring. I suggest rather than attempting more sweeping changes against consensus, you engage on the talk pages as multiple editors have asked of you. - Slàn, Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 02:21, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Is there anything wrong with the sources I added which you removed? The sources added were not controversial. As it reads it is pure POV becuase it factually states there are ongoing genocides in Brazil and that there was genocide in Myanmar and Guatemala. Though this may be true, these are claims and should be stated as such on wikepedia. Factually calling everything genocide is POV. There was nothing remotely POV about the edits of mine you reverted in your last edit of the page. 88.104.219.76 (talk) 02:47, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

You were advised numerous times to take the issue(s) to the talk page, actually pages of the multiple articles. In this one article, you are well past WP:3RR. You need to stop as multiple editors have advised you to do. GregJackP Boomer! 03:28, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

You reverted me three times on that page and therefore violated the rule your self: [2][3][4]. I made three reverts on the page, as many as you. In my last revision, the only thing change to the page was addition of well sourced information and more neutral language. How can it possibly be justified to remove those sources added and to factually call Myanmar, Guatemala and current Brazil genocide. Even if true, these are claims and it is NPOV to call them fact. 88.104.219.76 (talk) 09:07, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

3 reverts does not break 3RR (although I try to stay at 2 myself), IP blocked for 24 hours. Dougweller (talk) 10:02, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Didn't seem to help much, they are back at it. Appears to have made no difference in behavior and they cranked up again as soon as the block was off. Make it a week next time. Montanabw(talk) 05:32, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Adding content to Native Americans and reservation inequality article

I am a student working on an assignment to improve an article and I hope to improve this article by adding sections about reservation healthcare and education. Healthcare and education are important topics that I think fit well into the topic and would enhance the subject matter of this article. I also will try to improve and add to the historical background in the introduction and Historical section. I plan to use sources such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs website, National Library of Medicine, The National Indian Education Association website, and scholarly articles from databases. If anyone has any feedback or suggestions for what I am trying to do they would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Cnicholson12 (talk) 23:35, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Be sure to also pull information from Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Education. Additionally, National Congress of American Indians may also have information that may be of use. CJLippert (talk) 20:59, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Burrard Inlet Canoe.jpg

image:Burrard Inlet Canoe.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.131.217 (talk) 05:49, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Anahareo.jpg

image:Anahareo.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.131.217 (talk) 06:36, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

"Native American" => "American Indian" - contested Move result

There was recently a move proposal to move Native American boarding schools to Indian boarding schools. The logic presented was that we should not use the current common name, rather we should use what was the common name 100-150 years ago. This idea was defeated with 6 oppose votes to 4 support votes. However, someone mentioned that "American Indian" would at least have been more accurate a proposal than "Indian", and several of the oppose votes agreed (I also would agree that "American Indian" is a slight improvement over "Indian", but not over "Native American")

The closer interpreted this as a "consensus" to move the page from Native American boarding schools to American Indian boarding schools which was not formally even under consideration in the move request. I boldly reverted this move as unprocedural and it is now being discussed at Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2013_October#Native_American_boarding_schools by editors who [...redacted] are suggesting that I am seriously out of line for opposing the antiquated title "American Indian boarding schools" and moving it back to "Native American boarding schools". [Non-neutral sentence deleted 17:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC)] Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 11:58, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

This biased notification is a violation of WP:CANVASSING. Anyone in the project who feels like checking on the move review or the preceding move request discussion is more than welcome, though I expect they'll see the discussions have proceeded according to process and consensus, and it is Til Eulenspiegel who went out of line by move warring and now canvassing to get his way.--Cúchullain t/c 15:07, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
I see no violation of WP:CANVASS here. I often disagree with Til, but in this case it helps to know his reasoning and why we at this project should care. Montanabw(talk) 17:14, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
The violation is in the the fact that the notification wasn't "polite, neutrally worded with a neutral title, clear in presentation, and brief". He misrepresents the situation and casts aspersions on those who disagreed with him, in a transparent attempt to influence the outcome of the move review. And this after edit warring; not cool.--Cúchullain t/c 21:07, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
I was surprised by the move since no consensus was developed, so reverting the premature move couldn't be considered "edit warring." -Uyvsdi (talk) 21:31, 13 October 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
This really isn't the place for that discussion, but yes, it's edit warring to unilaterally revert to one's preferred name against a community discussion that was closed by an administrator. There are other ways to challenge a decision; this isn't it.--Cúchullain t/c 21:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
This is a more appropriate place for discussion than User talk:Darkwind. Several other editors voiced their concerns that a consensus had not been developed, so there should have been (and hopefully will be) a follow-up RM to actually gain an informed consensus. -Uyvsdi (talk) 14:37, 14 October 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
It's clearly canvassing and Til probably realises that. And this isn't the way to challenge the decision. Dougweller (talk) 15:58, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
The Mote and the Beam? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

The nice thing about this project is that we're almost all grownups here and perfectly capable of assessing Til's actions on their merits. We all know Til. We can decide how to evalate the situation independently and I for one am not going to slap him for canvassing. Montanabw(talk) 22:49, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Eyes needed

See Talk:Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Dougweller (talk) 11:46, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Menominee Tribe v. United States FAC

Menominee Tribe v. United States is currently undergoing a Featured Article Candidate review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Menominee Tribe v. United States/archive3. I would invite anyone interested in going by, looking at the article, and if inclined, adding your comments. Regards. GregJackP Boomer! 15:25, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Stereotypes of indigenous people in North America

If anyone else is interested in this article they definitely need to comment at Talk:Stereotypes of indigenous people in North America as it looks as though major changes are planned. Dougweller (talk) 10:56, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I have been editing Native American mascot controversy but had never followed the link to the Stereotypes article, and was shocked to find it a bare outline of the issue that had not been touched for perhaps two years. Having access to a university library, I have many academic resources to fill out that outline, and I own the book "Everything You Wanted to Know about INDIANS But Were Afraid to Ask" by Anton Treuer. Is there any other book giving a good overview that I should know about? FriendlyFred (talk) 13:46, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
NMAI's book, Do All Indians Live in Tipis? might be a good one too. -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:28, 29 October 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Carlisle Indian Industrial School

This article is a mess! It's so verbose and redundant, it's now difficult to read. It has been rewritten in such glowing, peacocky language that it reads like a recruiting flier. Much material is simply factually incorrect. Anyone who wants to cull or summarize sections, it would be greatly appreciated. -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:25, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi


Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe Peer Review

This article has been submitted for a peer review in preparation for a run at Featured Article. Any assistance would be appreciated. GregJackP Boomer! 04:06, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl FAC

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl is currently undergoing a Featured Article Candidate review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl/archive1. I would invite anyone interested in going by, looking at the article, and if inclined, adding your comments. Regards. GregJackP Boomer! 19:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Articles for deletion: Native

Contributors to this project may be interested in discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Native. Cnilep (talk) 04:17, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

First Nations women nominated for deletion

Just to let you know that Category:First Nations women is being considered for deletion. XOttawahitech (talk) 04:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

More racism and sexism. examples of systemic bias by those who are ignorant of the issues involving living ethnic groups of people. Will it ever end? Montanabw(talk) 04:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
That is not necessarily racism or sexism. It could equally be racism of sexism to label people for racial, ethnic and gendered categories when it is not necessary or warranted. You should probably read the rationale for deletion before making such accusations.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 04:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
wtf are you talking about Montanabw? You are an experienced editor and I respect you, but that's a seriously bullshit and offensive accusation and I think you owe me an apology. Ottawa did not even bother to notify the board correctly - this was not a nomination to delete, but rather one to merge to a broader parent category, something we do, um, all the time. I, and many others, are not convinced that for every category X, we need a category "Women X". It eventually leads to ghettoization. There are dozens of categories under Category:First nations people - for example, Category:First Nations installation artists‎; would you call it racist or sexist if I proposed deleting Category:First Nations women installation artists, or Category:Bisexual First Nations journalists, or any other combinations that people might think of? Should we create a "women" cat for every single grouping of first nations? If we don't, is that sexist? If we do, and then someone else proposes deletion, is *that* sexist? WTF? We already have a big enough problem as it is with ghettoization, and unfortunately some people like to create categories and then (a) not populate them and (b) not maintain them. The result, over time, is either (a) it looks like there are no First nations women or (b) women get ghettoized. Anyway, please retract your offensive suggestion that my nomination was motivated by racism or sexism, it wasn't.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:54, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I will accept your statement that you have no personal sexism or racism that motivates you. For that reason, I will redact the more strongly worded terminology and replace it with more precise terminology. However there is systemic bias here, however unconscious it may have been. I'm pissed at the consistent treating of indigenous people as invisible, primitive and/or archaic instead of living people who are amongst us every day, so I will not apologize for having some strong emotion and calling it as I saw it. You would not suggest eliminating "First Nations" and merging into "Aboriginal" if you knew the politics of the issue and the constant struggles with invisibility that Native peoples of the Americas face and the heat of that issue in Canada right now with movenments such as Idle No More. Your timing is very poor. I altered above as much as I'm going to. I am undecided on the "ghettoization" issue; I can see both sides, - with your "all or nothing examples", you have a false equivalency going here - I don't think we need categories like "women artists" instead of "artists," but I do see a need for "women of nation/group X" (though not a subcat unless the "men of nation/group X" cat also exists as a subcat of "people") so that they are brought forward and not relegated to invisibility. There's a good argument for "Foo people" across wikipedia, but so long as the men/women categories exist at all, then it's relevant to honor women here by admitting they exist. Montanabw(talk) 05:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

You say you see a need for "women of X" but not as a subcat, but that's exactly what "First Nations women" is - a subcat of "First Nations people", and there is no "men" equivalent. it's a classic setup for ghettoization.
Also, no, I would not suggest merging Category:First Nations people with Aboriginal people, but ... you have

you have

  • Category:Places in Ontario with Aboriginal majority populations‎ but no
  • Category:Places in Ontario with First Nations majority populations

‎You have

You have

and so on. You're making it seem like First nations are getting a raw deal, or that this "First Nations women" category, which was created about 2 weeks ago, is some sort of unassailable and essential heart of your category system, but it's simply not true. In fact, First Nations have a more developed category structure, and more filled out, than either Inuit or Metis. Yes, I KNOW FN/I/M are not the same, and I'm sorry there are difficulties right now, but that has nothing to do with category maintenance here. Nothing. The fact that you bring this stuff in makes me think you need to take a break, as you're not coming at this from a NPOV. As you can see from the examples above, the tree is RIFE with inconsistencies - some things are detailed at a 'first nations' level, some only exist at an aboriginal level, some only exist at a 'canadian people' level, some only exist at a tribe/band level. This is emergence, and the point of CFD, the point of all such discussions, in my mind, is to bring greater consistency. Editors, working of their own accord, have decided that not every category needs to be replicated across Aboriginal, first nations, metis, inuit. The fact that you may disagree with this one proposed merge does not mean that any such proposed merge is a pile of stinking racist/sexist shit, nor is it a sign of systemic bias. I am looking at this from the other side, which is I see tons of categories get created, and then not populated, and they are crap, and they make our category system look like crap, so yes, sometimes I swoop in and try to kill or merge some categories that simply are hard to maintain without ghettoizing. Do you realize that by having a "women" category in the middle of the tree, like you're doing here, in order to correctly de-ghettoize these women, it will end up being rather complex? In order to comply with the rules of WP:EGRS, they also need to be in Category:Canadian women, or a diffusing sub-category thereof, and they also need to be in Category:Canadian people by occupation - not in indigenous specific categories, but also in neutral categories. Any person who is placed in "First Nations women" will need to be in at least 4-5 other specific categories to not be ghettoized; what do you think the chances are that Joe Blow will do this right? As I look at the tree right now, there is rampant ghettoization, but no-one is going to write New York Times articles about it b/c these are brown people from Canada and not white novelists from America. If you want systemic bias, that's where it's at - the fact that people make a massive brouhaha over Amanda Filipachi not being in the "American novelist" category, or what Bradley/Chelsea Manning's page should be titled, but Lillian_Dyck remains ghettoized, and Wikipedia's history of aboriginal Americans is still, as pointed out above, told from the story of the conquerors.... Even bigger ghettoization here - she is ghettoized in at least 6 ways I think: Dana Claxton. If you want more systemic bias, study how the head of the wikimedia foundation wrote a huge blog post about how we screwed up by not immediately renaming Chelsea Manning's article, and then see how long of a blog post she wrote about us calling it Kiev instead of Kyev or Squamish instead of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh - oh, wait, she didn't, and no bloggers complained, and no-one tweeted, and the Guardian didn't carry the story. The systemic bias isn't just with our walls... --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't even want to go into that particular mess because it's a time sink. I do agree that "women" as a subgroup of "people" without equivalent of "men" is a problem. But here, the CfD is to delete Category:First Nations Women and make it part of Category:Aboriginal canadian women. My concern is making an ethnic group invisible, the women thing is in both versions, so I'm actually trying to focus on just what's proposed. Montanabw(talk) 06:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Having women's categories but not men's categories implies that humans are men, and women are anomalies. As a woman, I'm completely against placing women in a sub-category. Regarding First Nations cats, why exclude Métis and Inuit people? Canadian Aborginal cats are fine as is. -Uyvsdi (talk) 06:08, 20 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Note: The existence (and possible survival) of Category:First Nations women does not mean the parent cat is intended to only hold men; these categories are, per our guidance, always non-diffusing - that is, being in the women cat doesn't mean you're not in the parent. I have a much longer exposition of this in draft here User:Obiwankenobi/On categories, I'd welcome you to read it and provide your comments - but we have around 7,000 "Women" or "Female" categories, and they are all subcategories of gender-neutral parents. Every single one. Being in a subcategory isn't bad - what is seen as bad - by some - is being ghettoized.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:21, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree with Uyvsdi's view (though Uyvsdi, I think you missed the actual proposal over there, which was woman--> woman) and oppose subcategorizing and subordinating women to men. However, (also as a woman), sometimes I also see value in bringing out women and women's contributions or issues by category creation, so I have trouble formulating a one size fits all rule on this. (For example, a concept such as violence against women is something that should be distinguished from violence generally...) As to the topic, the question is whether to delete a First Nations cat in favor of an Aboriginal peoples cat only, as I understand the issue. I saw it as a way of making people invisible. I think both cats should stay for now, at least until the "women/people" broader issue reaches some sort of consensus (which will no doubt take months and months of tl;dr). Montanabw(talk) 06:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
    One less "women" cat is an improvement. You figure if you have a women's cat, then you need a men's cat, then what happens to intersex people like Hastiin Klah? Wikipedia also has the policy not to "out" people. -Uyvsdi (talk) 06:41, 20 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
    Remember the heated discussion on Category:American women novelists)?[5] - it's worth reading that discussion. Dougweller (talk) 08:32, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
    That discussion appears to be overwhelming in favor of merging. I'm impressed there is Category:American male novelists. Since there is already Category:American women writers and Category:Canadian women writers, Indigenous women writers in both countries can have those categories in addition to Category:First Nations writers or whichever is appropriate. An alternative to categories is to create a List of Aboriginal Women of Canada, along the lines of List of Native American women of the United States. -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:23, 20 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
    Except somewhere along the line the merge proposal got lost; it was First Nations 'women to Aboriginal Canadian women. So my view is that this is a First Nations/Aboriginal discussion as both are "women" cats. My understanding is that First Nations people is the equivalent to US people who are enrolled members of a federally-recognized tribe, hence Native American, and that "Aboriginal" in Canada is an accepted term that encompasses both First Nations people and People who are Inuit, just as in the USA we often say Native American/Alaskan Native, who could, in theory both be classed as "Indigenous people". I'd be concerned if a similar proposal was presented to, for example, merge "Native American" into "Indigenous people of North America" and eliminate a "Native American" category. The "women" issue is a different issue Montanabw(talk) 00:03, 21 November 2013 (UTC).
You might have a point if all aboriginal cats in Canada were parents of a 'first nation' cat, or vice versa, but that's clearly not the case.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
They should be. Aboriginal = First Nation + Inuit + Métis. To MTBW, one less "women" cat is still progress. -Uyvsdi (talk) 04:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
You know, there is too much drama that I'm involved with, and I'm just tired. This is something both too big and not big enough to be worth the energy I'm putting into it. You guys go work it out. I am now officially going into DGAF land on this one. Montanabw(talk) 18:56, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Indian reserve changed back to First Nations reserve by hasty RM

So much for retirement, and in fact my health isn't doing so well right now, but when I saw this I had to come back. Can't believe that this isn't protected in some way to keep from further uninformed/rash fiddling. See here and on BDD's talkpage.Skookum1 (talk) 20:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Remind me, which is the legal term of art? (I'm tracking too f*****g many dramas right now) Do hope your health will be improving soon! Montanabw(talk) 21:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
apples and oranges. This is about something that has a name, not a general concept like "art". Suffice to say "show me a 'First Nations reserve' on a map" or in BC Names or in CGNDB or the like, or on Atlas of Canada/NTS etc etc.Skookum1 (talk) 21:32, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Re-RM for First Nations reserve back to Indian reserve

Well, though I really didn't want to get involved again for health reasons, I think this is very important so assembled my points and tried to post it as technically as possible. See Talk:First_Nations_reserve#Requested_move_2_-_back_to_Indian_reserve.Skookum1 (talk) 01:57, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

One thing to add to that. Is there a Canadian equivalent of the BIA or something that can verify that the official terminology is still "Indian reserve" and that this is also used by the First Nations people who live in these places? The term "Indian reservation" is kind of fuzzy in the USA, the word "reservation" is still used, of course, and "Indian" has a specific legal meaning in the USA, but what is the Canadian version? (I know WP can raise your blood pressure, so take care of yourself) Montanabw(talk) 02:47, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move: Eskimo

There is a requested move discussion at Eskimo.--Labattblueboy (talk) 04:06, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Naming convention for identically named indigenous peoples

(Reposted from WP Indigenous Peoples of the Americas:) I'm about to create a new page for the Yuki people of central Bolivia. However, Yuki people already exists, describing an unrelated ethnic group in California. Does anyone have strong preferences about the disambiguating phrase: country, state/department, or broader ethnic category. That is, should there be Yuki people (United States) or Yuki people (California) on the one hand, and Yuki people (Bolivia) or Yuki people (Cochabamba) or Yuki people (Tupi-Guarani) on the other. I'm leaning towards Yuki people (California) and Yuki people (Bolivia) since these are recognizable geographic divisions with the necessary specificity (the Yuki of Bolivia previously lived in Santa Cruz as well as Cochabamba departments).--Carwil (talk) 05:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, answered you at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Thanks for your contributions! -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:44, 23 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Authenticity issues....

Because of the importance of the Indian reserves/First Nations reserves RM, I've come out of self-forced retirement; my health can't take a lot of editing like I used to, nor taking up inanities with the spear of truth too much; but there's a few terminological and contextual issues with various indigenous articles and categories I've always found troubling; one is referring to spirits as "deities" and "gods", as with Talk:Winalagalis where the spirit is referred to as a "war god", and the term "Kwakiutl" rather than Kwakwaka'wakw. A guideline called WP:Authenticity should be established IMO, to govern problems like this one, which concerns the imposition of "external" paradigms on indigenous realities/beliefs.Skookum1 (talk) 07:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

omnibus titles with only-specific citations

Two immediate ones that come to mind which are about particular places or peoples are Coast Salish defensive sites, which is about one location in the lower Fraser Canyon and is about only one group of the Sto:lo, and Salishan oral literature which if that title were to remain, shoudl be a survey or omnibus account of all Salishan groups, any commonalities etc, not just about the Montana/Flathead Salish and the Squamish/Skwxwu7mesh (it was frustration with the insults fielded at me in the discussion on that article's talkpage that led me to walk out of Wikipedia a few months ago). The defender of that article, which I'd prodded as just a pastiche of two widely disparate stories based on just a pair of papers, just as the defensive sites is built on just one academic paper......using "pan-ethnic" titles like that, without any work whatsoever towards making the content match the sweep of the title, is just irresponsible. "Reliable sources" or not.....yes, that IS my opinion....which raises once again the idea of there being "WP:DOYEN" or some kind of resident authority/arbiter status in various fields and on various topics; so we don't have to keep on re-arguing things like Indian Reserve/First Nations reserve over and over again with people not as familiar with all the realities and sensitivities involved....did I just say "we"? Groan, swallowed again....Skookum1 (talk) 07:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Finis

For better or worse, every single federally recognized Indian tribe in the lower 48 has its own Wikipedia article! -Uyvsdi (talk) 03:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

You rock, man! Wow! Do we have a list or category where they all can be located? Montanabw(talk) 05:07, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
List of federally recognized tribes and Category:Federally recognized tribes in the United States. I should note that for tribes like Quapaw or Kiowa, where's there one ethnic group and one single tribe, there's just one article. Some articles have the reservation name as opposed to the tribal name. -Uyvsdi (talk) 16:14, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Thank you for your effort! CJLippert (talk) 17:54, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Infoboxes for sovereign tribes

Would anyone care to share their views on this? In the WikiProject's archives I found two discussions (June 2007 and July 2013) in which a few people expressed the view that Template:Infobox settlement, Template:Infobox ethnic group, and Template:Infobox country are insufficient for articles about tribal sovereignties. Indeed, a reserve isn't a country, and it might comprise multiple settlements with multiple ethnic groups. Although the ethnic group infobox does a decent job for some articles about reserves and tribal sovereignties, it has only basic geographical data, and no details about jurisdiction, governance, etc.

Examples of how infoboxes are used now:

How might new infoboxes work? I think it might make sense to build one infobox specifically for federally-recognized tribes in the US, and another for First Nations governments? What data do you think we should include in these infoboxes?

Does Template:Infobox settlement meet the needs of articles about Canadian Indian reserves? User:CJLippert (from the US) wrote that although a reserve is sometimes also a settlement, it might encompass multiple settlements. Is this the case for some reserves within Canada? He also mentioned that there are cases where jurisdictional responsibilities are divided between a community and its constituent settlements. With some specific examples it might become clear whether this sort of thing should also be summarized in an infobox.

  • Some reserves are far afield from any actual settlement, and while some might be a seasonal hunting or fishing camp, the use of "settlement" would be inappropriate. Not many of these would have their own articles, though.Skookum1 (talk)

At present, I envision the new infoboxes as something like the ethnic-group infobox, but with more stuff. :) Thoughts? –Ringbang (talk) 22:46, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

If you look at the archived discussion (which you have provided a link), you will notice that our conversation made a distinction between a Settlement and settlement, just as there is a difference between a Community and community, Town and town, etc. The capitalised name indicates there is a some sort of legal jurisdictional powers, while the minisculised form of the name is a general term. The question that needs to be addressed with Template:Infobox settlement is if it will cover a Settlement or a settlement, as all Settlements are settlements, but not all settlements are Settlements. CJLippert (talk) 17:41, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
    • yes, and there are yet no categories nor articles for Indian Settlements, Metis Settlements, Indian Villages and other designations.Skookum1 (talk)
To Ringbang: There used to be a template for federally recognized tribes that was deleted based on consensus from discussion. Currently there is a Category:Federally recognized tribes in the United States. I've use the ethnic group template for federally recognized tribes and don't have any major complaints (numerous tribes are the ethnic group, i.e. Quapaw, Kiowa, Pawnee people, Caddo, etc.) In the United States not every tribe has a reservation, and Oklahoma tribes have tribal jurisdictional areas. Looking at the settlement infobox for Navajo Nation, "date established" section is questionable since the Navajo Nation existed prior to signing any treaties (sovereignty hinges on tribes' government existing prior to European incursion). The "capital" and "website" sections might be useful. Population density doesn't work for most tribes since many tribal members live outside reservation/tribal jurisdictional boundaries. The question would be, do you really want to edit 306+ federally recognized tribe articles? If so, Godspeed! -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
I'm partially with Uyvsdi in that many parameters are unworkable for the reasons stated, and that infobox ethnic group can probably be made to work for many if not most tribal nations, particularly if we see if there are necessary parameters that could be added to that infobox, allowing assorted things like Reservation info, perhaps (size, tribal HQ , etc.). It's also not fun to swap out 300+ infoboxes manually, and I don't see how a bot could be configured to do it. (Though if we got all people on the wikiproject to help, it could be done) Infobox settlement does NOT really work, as many if not most reserves, reservations, whatever are NOT "settlements" but often are large land areas with multiple towns within. We do have a problem with the ethnic group infobox for the nations like the Shoshone or the Cherokee where there are multiple reservations. We have the opposite problem with the ethnic group infobox for places like Colville or CSKT where there are multiple tribes on one reservation. But that doesn't involve 300+ articles, but maybe would affect a few dozen(?) Personally, I would like to see the link to the TfD on the federally recognized tribes infobox to see what the reasoning was to remove it. Seems to me that another idea is that some sort of Template could be created that would cover ALL of the governmentally-recognized entities of whatever form of dependent sovereign status that exists, possibly worldwide, maybe even including assorted other autonomous regions elsewhere (anything more recognized than Kurdistan but less than Scotland). No real strong feelings here, just musing and thinking aloud a bit. Montanabw(talk) 19:57, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, Montanabw, I've misled you. It was a template for fed rec tribes but not an infobox. The argument was mainly that the category achieved the goal of grouping fed rec tribes together. A tribe infobox could include the tribal administration, but these change quickly and sometimes are quite volatile, i.e. Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes#Current issues earlier this year. -Uyvsdi (talk) 04:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Skookum1 speaks

OK, so I'm not Black Elk, and I'm not aboriginal, not on this continent anyway. I'm going to try and ration my work here so I don't blow a fuse at $%@#$% n******lls or have another almost-stroke. As many here know I've spent a lot of energy for many years trying to coalesce some kind of organization on this body of articles, which were sorely in need of it and needs both creative and broad-minded and accurate organization. Developing standards and guidelines I've proposed repeatedly, only to find the absence of them has resulted in repair jobs being endlessly necessary, such as at the IR/FNR RM right now and on the RMs that were such a pain several months ago. Those complaints aren't relevant here, I'm just explaining where I'm coming from. That being said, the word "sovereign" here attracted my attention in the watchlist, and there's a few observations on the above items I think need to be made:

  • Navajo Nation and Crow Nation. Quite often there is no distinction made between the land base and the government or "sovereign entity", and between that and the people themselves. The notion as established, if not codified, years ago when Phaedriel was around, was that government, reserve/reservation, community, people and language articles and categories have to be separate, if only by means of redirects when necessary. How that relates here is that Navajo Nation is a government article, it's not clear to me if it's separate from the Navajo people in content, or can be. What's in the Category:Navajo Nation includes Category:Navajo history, Category:Navajo culture, Category:Navajo mass media which are not part of the Navajo Nation government, but of what, to me, should be a Category:Navajo, period,, or Category:Navajo tribe. But the Crow Nation article is an ethno article and should be Crow tribe. The capital-N usage has various problems when applied to "people"/ethno articles, often when there is also an article and/or category about a particular organization, which is a subset of the larger group; Mohawk and Sto:lo have had this problem; i.e. Sto:lo Nation is just one tribal council entity of two councils and many unaffiliated bands of the Sto:lo. Same with Squamish people vs Squamish Nation, as the latter is about a government; the Mohawk situation is fairly complicated but suffice to say Mohawk Nation was not suitable as an article for the ethnic group. In Canada the capital-n "Nation" (when not preceded by "First") is used for tribal council names, sometimes for individual band names....Navajo Nation appears to be in the same situation re "infobox government"....and yet it talks about Navajo territory also as the Nation, and it's not just one settlement, it's many, as well as a territory or "country". Nuxalk Nation is the same vs Nuxalk people and same with many others. Equating capital-N Nation for 'people' articles can't work; if the articles that exist cover both in their entirety, at least one should be a redirect in its own appropriate category hierarchy. But as with Navajo Nation, there are many Canadian bands whose articles as yet are also written as ethno, and as settlement, and as reserve; "the First Nation" can be used to mean the place/reserve/territory, or the government, or the community; I've tried to sort out some of that by careful use of redirects but it's an unfinished work at this point.
  • "sovereignty" is a loaded word. It does not technically apply to Indian reserves the way it does, or can, to reservations in the US. But reserve lands will be treated as sovereign by the presiding government or by individuals within a given people, and some like the Nuxalk and the St'at'imc and Haida are very explicit about "unsurrendered sovereignty" and nation-to-nation relationships with the Crown (by which they mean the Throne, the monarch, not even to the Dominion viceroy). The "Treatied" bands east of the Rockies are different in legal terms, but they also refer to sovereignty beyond their reserve boundaries; the constitutional and treaty law behind all this is too complicated to say much more about, but there is no comfortable way to apply it across the board.
  • the use of the formation "FOO tribe" for both ethno articles and government articles, and categories, gets confusing as sometimes there are Native American ethnic groups that are not federally-recognized tribes; and "tribe" in CAnada has different usages, as all of us I think are aware of; and sometimes used for band government names e.g. Cowichan Tribes, which is a multi-people grouping under one band government, and I think Tlowitsis Tribe which is one of the Kwakwaka'wakw groups, where "tribe" is also used or can be used to refer to the sub-ethnic groups among that large group; and it occurs in tribal council names like the Nicola Tribal Association (which is Nlaka'pamux/Scwe'xmx and Okanagan in composition and though identifying as a single tribe is really composed of two ethnic groups...really three because some families consider themselves heirs to the Stuwix legacy). And in case like the Tsetsaut and Stuwix (both extinct, as are the Pentlatch), and extant groups like the Sinixt, they are not "First Nations" in teh "FOO First Nation" name-format being used for band governments; nor are they capital-N "Nations".
  • So what am I saying? The title-formats can't be used to decide on which type of infobox can/should be used, I guess, and to point out the vagaries of the naming system that still need sorting out; and the multiple contexts of "First Nations" (especially vs its use in singular form "FOO First Nation", for a band government...and some band governments just use "FOO") mean that categories like Category:First Nations in British Columbia should perhaps simply be Category:Indigenous peoples in British Columbia; there is already a Category:First Nations governments in British Columbia. NB the term "indigenous government" there would refer to traditional governance, not to Indian ACt-mandated governments, i.e. band councils. Confusing huh? Which is why "we" have to try and make some kind of sense of it all.
  • the lower-case issue mentioned by Uysvidi is a bugbear far beyond indigenous articles; too often in Wikipedia a phrase like "City of VAncouver" is lower-cased and jumbles the context of what is being said, i.e. when capitalized that shoudl refer to the governmental institution, not to the physical city/community. Also this applies with lower-case rules on titles and category names, of which "FOO tribes" is partly an example.
  • it's not just Canadian reserves that can have more than one settlement/ the Colville Reservation is an excellent case in point of a large reservation with multiple towns within it. And many physical reserves in CAnada are not settlements, not permanent ones anyway, some are just chunks of land attached to a reserve which might have only a few residents, and many large native communities are within municipalities, as are IRs, though the IR is governed separately from the municipalities..... and this gets back to the point in what I think was my first section here where there is often a jumbled article which is all-at-once reserve, community, band and ethno article when that it's a '"which one to use" situation. The task in all these cases is to break up the articles, or at least rearrange their contents and create sections that can be made category-organized redirects. Many individual bands have multiple reserves, many reserves are shared across multiple bands, and so on...and it may be necessary to have separate infoboxes, if only differing by the titles and names of certain fields, for "infobox band government", "infobox federally-recognized tribe", "infobox indigenous people", "infobox tribal council"......and what to do with reserve/settlement/community/reservation I don't have an easy answer for....
  • I'll have a look again above, there were some other thigns that occurred to me when scanning; but noting Kiowa and Quapaw and the "FOO" format for ethno article titles, I urge there to be a group consideration of changing ethno articles like Sto:lo people back to Sto:lo so the former title can be "people who are of Sto:lo origin" as is the more widespread use of "FOO people". This was an unnecssary disambiguation added to many articles by a certain linguist |"being bold" without thought of the consequences and evolving standards......in many cases this will mean reverting to the indigenous-authentic endonym i.e. from Squamish people back to Skwxwu7mesh because of the Squamish disambiguation page; ditto with Mohawk. Standards? maby their not possible. But I do know that Kainai go by another name in English, and Kainai Nation is their band government, not that maybe there's a distinction between ethno and government in that case (I'm not in Alberta so am not sure about that).
  • anyways sounds like "infobox tribe" is being used for other USian indigenous peo[ples that are not federally-recognized tribes and/or governments.....I'd think "infobox government" might be better, when such articles are not ethno articles; but it couldn't be used for Canadian groups....well, it could, but would cause confusion.Skookum1 (talk) 05:51, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
  • re the Crow Nation, the government article there seems to be Crow Tribal Administration, the reservation is I believe the Crow Agency. so the capital-N title is problematic and, to me, should be changed.
  • re teh Semiahmoo and Kwantlen First Nations, which are band governments, and the Kwantlen have several reserves (the Semiahmoo have only one), and claimed Kwantlen territory goes far beyond their reserves, the us of "infobox country" there is inappropriate and more than a bit POV.Skookum1 (talk) 05:54, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
  • and re Category:Navajo_Nation, I note that some subcategories use "on the Navajo Nation" which is about the place, not the government or the people....Skookum1 (talk) 06:05, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Definitely couldn't read all this but "The notion as established, if not codified, years ago when Phaedriel was around, was that government, reserve/reservation, community, people and language articles and categories have to be separate" — I respectfully disagree with this practice, since it tends to generate a bunch of stubs instead of one coherent article. WP:INPA can establish guidelines but these are open to change, not set in stone. -Uyvsdi (talk) 16:49, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
The reason for it was that language categories were being applied to people articles, and there were many situations where there were several governments for one people, governments that spanned several peoples, and so on; and articles and terminology being used that confused the idea of the government with that of the people, or speaking of a place as if it were a "who", and so on. In cases where all those are congruous or where for example IRs would only redirect to a government article, I'd put the IR category on the redirect. And it's often quite impossible to make one coherent article because of multiple communities, multiple languages, and multiple governments diverging from one people article. There are three (four?) Nlaka'pamux tribal councils and at least one independent band (the Lytton First Nation, which is one of the largest governments, with several physically separate reserves). This isn't just a BC problem, there were many reasons in WA and OR for this, also The Colville Reservation and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation are two different topics, and there's 17 or so peoples, not all from the same language group, and so on. The idea, again, was to ensure there was a coherent category system, likewise for list articles. And also because people articles and government articles, even when there is only one government, "don't see eye to eye", as in the case of the Squamish Nation government article and the Squamish people/Skwxwu7mesh article. Likewise in the very complicated case of the Mohawk, and the Siouxan peoples - and the Kwakwaka'wakw. In the cases of unitary reserves/peoples like Musqueam, Tsawwassen, Semiahmoo, Tsartlip, T'zouke there really is only one article possible but categorized redirects help with that. It was seeing many cases where people/government articles were to be found in language categories that started this all off....Skookum1 (talk) 18:02, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
I did read. I think that Skookum makes some good points about the overall problem, though targeted solutions will be a challenge. While I think that there are some cases where "government, reserve/reservation, community, people and language" could be split (Navajo possibly being one, Colville definitely an example), in other cases, Uyvsdi is right that guidelines are not set in stone and sometimes we are just making a bunch of WP:FORKing stubs (pun intended!). (Thinking of groups like the Crow, one rez, one basic ethnic group, one good, comprehensive article could cover all of the above), perhaps the The first problem is where to start? second problem is The Little Red Hen - who will help? Here's my "cliff's notes" assessment:
  1. This wikiproject has, at a minimum, hundreds of articles.
  2. Many are low quality stubs
  3. Some are written with a tone of racial/ethnic insensitivity by wikipedians who had no clue what they were talking about
  4. Others were apparently written by people with understanding of the ethnic group, but no understanding of wiki editing
  5. There is no one right answer that fits everyone or every group
  6. Many groups are subject to some legitimate and significant differences of opinion that may be irreconcilable (naming disputes, for example) Often lots of opinions, not enough facts, and "facts" are frequently in dispute.
  7. Add to the above wikipedia guidelines and policies like WP:PRIMARY and the overreliance on Google hits to find answers.
  8. There are fewer than 10 people in this wikiproject who are actually able to do any substantial editing work (probably about 5 or 6, tops) - Not a slap at anyone, I'm as guilty as anyone at having multiple priorities pulling at my on-wiki time.
  9. I think (could be wrong) that only 2 of the people here are actually of significant Indigenous ancestry beyond the usual "I think I have an Indian ancestor somewhere, but don't know for sure" silliness.
  10. Only 2 or 3 of the rest of us in the "whiter than an Osmond family reunion" camp (nodding at myself here) have enough background to even spot potential problems, even where we aren't, ourselves, 100% certain of the answer. And we can fall into our own biases.
  11. Some people who weigh in at various CfD and AfD discussions are utterly clueless - and often unkind about it too
  12. WP:RS is not very helpful here because some RS have massive systemic bias and some sources that are actually solid fail criteria like WP:SELFPUB
  13. I have had pretty good success on individual articles with WP:BB
  14. WP:BB doesn't work with moving disputes if the article has been renamed several times.

So, where to start? Do we all just piecemeal try to work on various articles or do we first try to get the project structure into some kind of order and create a set of project guidelines that we can have all editors tap as we improve articles? What are our priorities? Thoughts? I have one: Stay away from all drama boards unless someone else drags you there! Then only go there kicking and screaming! Montanabw(talk) 18:21, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, now I've read everything (turkey in oven=free time). I do agree that tribe/ethnic groups should be separate from language articles, but they already are, so problem solved. Separating tribal community from tribal government from tribal landbase isn't philosophical right (except with examples like Navajo Nation, which is the largest reservation and second largest tribe in US so not typical at all—compare that to many small California tribes which pretty much every adult member serves on the tribal council). If we need a collective project, I believe quite a while ago, CJLippert brought up the need to create articles for Alaska Native tribal entities, which are overwhelmingly redlinked. Maybe seek out the best existing article and use that as a model? If folks want to draft a protocol for Alaska Native villages, that actually might be useful. -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:13, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Maybe even a special Alaska Native village template might be useful? -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:16, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Worth noting in that context that many Alaska Natives live in "cities" (nearly any Alaskan town is legally a city).....I did have a contact with the Alaskan Haida about doing a separate Kaigani Haida article, and about which towns they're in.....it's a whole different body of terminologies up there....Skookum1 (talk) 19:32, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
"Village" is the term for the federal recognized Alaskan Native entity. Alaskan Natives are enrolled in villages, that in turn belong to Alaska Native Regional Corporations. They have nothing to do with what town/city people live in. -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:12, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Re separating tribal government from tribal landbase often already exists, as with Crow Indian Reservation and Crow Nation.....and there's a case where a split between the ethno content of what would be Crow people vs Crow Tribe of Indians is fairly easy to do; and note that Crow Tribal Administration exists, which apparently should be retitled Crow Tribal General Council. Much the same applies with Warm Springs and Colville and Grand Ronde and others. in re the Crow see Category:Crow tribe....where we're faced with that conundrum caused by lower-casing "Tribe" (i.e. federally recognized tribe) and the dual meaning about people/tribe...and the "FOO people" problem.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:32, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I was just about to do that split, and it's not as simply as cutting and pasting. Partly because the opening of the section that could be moved starts off with material about the reservation itself; the title Crow Tribe of Indians is available for use, "Crow Nation" is its alt-name, so Crow people or Crow tribe would be what the remaining material could be titled. I think in this case as in others it's necessary to separate the history and ethnology from modern governance and constitutions.Skookum1 (talk) 19:40, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Please don't. If you want to move the article or make major changes, please propose it on that article's talk page. Why exactly should a contemporary tribe be separated from its own history? (Unless the article is gigantic.) Basically that approach just serves to delegitimize current tribal populations—because "real" Indians live in the 19th century and look like Edward Curtis photogravures; tribes today are mere shadows of "real Indians." This wouldn't be an issue, except that much the non-Native population of the world has this underlying, unspoken prejudice. I routinely have to restore photos of living Indians because random people remove them for not looking "Indian" enough. -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:05, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
BTW the official name of the tribe is "Crow Tribe of Montana." There's no reason to make up an approximation of the tribe's name. -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:09, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
I didn't make that up, it's repeated a few times in the article e.g. 2nd paragraph of the Government section "The Crow Nation, or Crow Tribe of Indians, established a three-branch government at a 2001 Council Meeting". From the Montana government's Indian Affairs website: "The Crow Tribal Council is the governing body of the Crow Tribe of Indians and is made of up three branches of government...|" and "Crow Constitution & By-laws for the Crow Tribe of Indians". Their official website, however, uses "Crow Nation". From the Crow Fair page's leded "The Crow Fair was created in 1904 by an Indian government agent to bring the Crow Tribe of Indians into modern society. "Skookum1 (talk) 20:16, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Skookum, you're a good egg, but lay off the Crow tribe. I can pick up the phone and ask someone
List of federally recognized tribes. -Uyvsdi (talk) 21:25, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
I DO happen to know something about the Crow. For starters, their own web site will be the best source for who they are and what they want to be called: http://www.crow-nsn.gov The state of Montana site, while well-intentioned, is not as good a source as the tribal nation itself. The next thing is that "tribe of Indians" terminology is more often than not, disfavored. "Nation" can generally be used without pissing off anyone. ("Indian" is all over the place, some hate the word, some are OK with it, it's a legal term of art, etc...) They are in a similar situation as the Navajo, as there is one reservation, one primary language and ethnic group, and though a lot of people who are enrolled may live off the rez, they aren't scattered across multiple reservations the way the Sioux are. Crow Agency, by the way, is a sort of town/tribal headquarters, but not the name of the reservation. Right now, I see the potential for some content forks to be merged, but it needs to be done with a lot of care... Montanabw(talk) 02:57, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I just became "interested" in the topic because of the apposition to the Navajo Nation article raised initially. If they use the term "Crow Nation" to mean the land, the government and the people/ethnography all at the same time, of course I'm fine with that; but the lede needs to be explicit about that, IMO. Unlike Colville and Yakima reservations/governments, it's just one "ethnic" group also. There are some "FOO Tribe of Indians" in Washington, I think in some cases their own websites do use that phrasing. Re the Crow, the lede might say something like "the Crow Nation, known to the federal and Montana governments as The Crow Tribe of Indians...." but in that phrasing that would refer to the government; so if "Crow Nation" also means the Crow Indian Reservation as such, another bit of phrasing is needed. Just being picky, I know, Crow Agency I guess I just remember from driving through there (and I remember being surprised at the gentle terrain at Little Bighorn...one too many movie sets with hilly ground I guess). To me, there is a distinction between the government/land/people as with Norway/Norwegians, Japan, Japanese people and NB with France/French people the latter being different from French citizens, just as German people is not just about citizens of Germany. With Canadian indigenous equivalents, e.g. when I was trying to straighten out Quebec and Ontario and Alberta etc listings, I would source the band's own website for the preferred usage; of course the same should apply here.....but all alt-names still need to be covered....and care taken to have section-targeted redirects in the correct categories, so the "wrong" kind of article doesn't wind up in in the "wrong" category.`Skookum1 (talk) 04:27, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

No, the Montana government (or any state) has all-but-zero authority over naming tribes. Recognition is at the federal level, and goes back to the US Supreme Court decisions of John Marshall. Tribes in the USA are "dependent sovereign nations" and as such, individual U.S. States have very limited authority over tribal nations and tribal members on the reservations, generally only when the state and the tribe have worked out an agreement. (Of the rez, it's a different issue). So here, the BIA would have some authority, though their web site is pretty iffy: article about Crow Agency, this one says "Crow Tribe", this is a work using "Apsáalooke Indian Nation" and "Crow Indian Reservation", and another pitch, with some history. and a searchArguably, the "people" article should be titled "Apsáalooke", the political land that is the reservation Crow Indian Reservation, and I suppose one also has to research "Crow Nation" to see if there is a political split internally (Crow Tribe politics are particularly active, it's a real hotbed there...) over naming issues. Colloquially, people out here tend to say "Crow Tribe" (versus Flathead Rez catchall is sometimes "CSKT" and Blackfeet Reservation is just "Blackfeet"). Ideally, you look for the Tribal Constitution for the "official legal" names. Montanabw(talk) 04:57, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Fun fact, re: Navajo people, they are also enrolled in the Colorado River Indian Tribes of the Colorado River Indian Reservation, as well as the Navajo Nation. Montanabw's totally correct that states can't pick tribal names; the tribes chose their own names. List of federally recognized tribes is based on the Federal Register's annual list of recognized tribes. Whenever tribes change their names, which happens all the time, it's reflected in the Federal Register's list. Every tribe goes by numerous different names, but the legal name will be on the Register. -Uyvsdi (talk) 05:21, 29 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
[post edit conflict]] Hm, the "Apsáalooke" name - anglicized to Absaroka - is "more common" as the name of the mountain range; similar situation, kinda, to the Squamish/Skwxwu7mesh dilemma and the "anglicized" forms of Sto:lo and St'at'imc (i.e. without special characters and diacriticals). That Sto:lo and St'at'imc and other indigenous endonyms are now common fare in Canadian English helped resolve those RMs, but Skwxwu7mesh is not one of those now common in English; making Squamish a bit of an aberration within BC FN ethno articles titles; though Syilx remains at Okanagan people, and the Dakelh article is still at Carrier people though the category wasn't changed (Category:Dakelh). It seems it might not be possible at all to have a common standard, is what I'm saying; as much as I don't like seeing the unnecessary "FOO people" where "FOO" will do just fine, there are cases like Crow people and Squamish people and Mohawk people wind up being necessary....Skookum1 (talk) 05:27, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

To try and bring this long digression around to homebase, if the Crow Nation article is going to combine Crow Indian Reservation with the tribal government/administration, then it would seem to be mandated to use infobox country. If not, then infobox government and infobox [territory] would be the pair, and infobox settlement used for settlements within the 'territory', whatever term would be best there; can't use "reservation" because of the Cdn "reserve"...though I do note that many USian-based infoboxes of various kinds do get used on CAnadian articles; sooner or later WPCANADA folks get around to making Canadianized versions; and in some cases e.g. infobox county, were it to exist, does have uses in some provinces. in the case of the Okanagan Nation Alliance, there is not one reserve in Canada but a few dozen, as well as the Colville Reservation. There is a Ktunaxa cross-border organization, its name escapes me at the moment...I'm not sure if the Blackfoot/Blackfeet have a joint organization. Not sure how the Mohawk "partition" works. Alaskan Haida and Tsimshian are not organized with their BC counterparts, likewise the Inland Tlinkit are not co-organized with their Alaskan counterparts. Not that I know of, that is. Skookum1 (talk) 06:19, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

No one has posted a merge proposal for the Crow articles. I'm impressed that with so much writing, so little has been accomplished. Basically, the reason why there are not current WP:INPA standards is that, of the active editors here, we don't agree on matters. WP:Ethnic groups has concluded that on numerous points, multiple approaches are acceptable; the same should be conceded here. -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:48, 29 November 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
it is conceded, and I'm sorry for all the spew, I'm just exploring variables..... and I never said anything about merging things into Crow Nation; quite the opposite. My concern about a cohesive and coherent category system can largely be solved by categorized redirects where necessary and/or possible. But reduplication of content gets to be knotty to un-entwine. There were articles I found in Ontario about reserve communities that were not reserve articles, and were treated as government/people articles, where reserve starts (not stubs) already existed, with coordinates and population figures, and also articles for the bands/governments themselves. sometimes the placename/community article was written as a government article, or a history/culture article. It maybe is simpler on the US side of things....for the most part.....multiple solutions have to exist because of the differing cultures and legal/territorial realities..... I'm sorry to be so long-winded, we actually agree more than I think you're getting..... part of the reason for this effort to organize, if not standardize (which cannot work) is so that "wild card" articles do not get started and things are in the right categories and titles have some kind of coherent relevance to on-the-ground reality. Very often they do not. As for the Crow situation, the Crow Tribal Administration would seem to be the article about the actual council as opposed to the Crow "country".....in the case of the main article, I still think the sections up to where it starts talking about the current political reality should be separate from the "culture/ethno" section before it. That's partly becausee there are already Crow history and Crow culture articles....or hm maybe it's Category:Crow culture and Category:Crow history.... essentially we have many overlapping articles, some covering the same ground; in Crow Nation's context there is also an article, for example, on the constitution, the reservation and the council...and more.Skookum1 (talk) 22:42, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Better to do rather than to explain; I just went through Category:American Indian reservations in Washington (state) and transferred the category to the reservation redirects; this category had had only one italicized category/redirect in it so far, the idea is to make the categories coherent; NB in the case of the Swinomish there is no actual information on their current reservation other than it exists; most of them have a lat-long included in the article, so {{GeoGroup}} ({{GeoGroupTemplate}}?) could be used to generate a map. Some of these articles will have one kind of infobox. Of the tribe articles, the italicized items, that is, their "reservation" sections are bare-bones one-liners= proto-stubs so far. But like reserves in CAnada, some of these have complicated landhistories or may have some notability in their own right, or there's enough out there on them in some way to warrant a separate article some day.Skookum1 (talk) 06:50, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

You know, if you think you can make better sense out of the categories, I don't really have a kick with that. My main concern is that we don't go mucking around in the articles too much unless we actually have damn good WP:RS material to work from; otherwise, it's "just everyone's opinion". Merge tags = too much f**king drama. My thinking is to improve articles where we have time and interest, get consensus before doing something to massive numbers of articles (like deciding which infobox is best), and maybe look at being sure that we are right before going ahead. Montanabw(talk) 01:25, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Take our time? What? The next thing you know, they'll be turtles under lamp posts at SCOTUS, or on the east facade of the building. Take our time? Preposterous. GregJackP Boomer! 02:19, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

@Montanabw, agreed about fussing with merge tags. As with the dross on Indian reserve that has nothing directly to do with Indian reserves, I'm just gonna move it, same as I removed the long bit of SYNTH from the lede justifying the name-change that is now having to be RM'd back to where it belongs...... lots of article "bloat". Articles overlap all the time, and sometimes what a title is and what hte content is don't match all that well; to me there's a clear delineation in topic matter between history and culture on the one hand and post-Contact government/organization on the other. This is why each of the "ethnic" groups on the Colville Reservation have their own ethno articles, and there are separate language articles. In some cases the separate tribe/government/reserv(e/ation) titles already exist, often enough they're not in the right category. AS you know I've done a large amount of work trying to straighten out lots of these, there's large areas that it's not done yet, partly due to lack of time...and sometimes hard to sort out, for one reason or another. I agree that templates cause too much drama; I try to stay within "procedure" but often "procedure" becomes "quagmire" all too quickly and things get lost in the shuffle and people burn out...as I indeed did, and don't want to again. This convo started about which infobox to use on which article, and in that regard taht's why I brought up categories......same kind of idea, because there's articles in some categories that should be in other categories, and sometimes infoboxes are misapplied...making the topics clear and separate/defined when possible is why I suggest what I'm suggesting.....and have continued to work on, like I did with the Washington State reservation category the other night.Skookum1 (talk) 02:42, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

"Oh Lord please don't let me be misunderstood".Skookum1 (talk) 02:44, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Skookum, my thoughts are simple: You've got the strongest interest on Canadian First Nations and the Pacific Northwest of any of us. So proceed until apprehended, but if apprehended by one of us at the project, we are all good people here so take our advice to heart. No need to go on here other than to help organize your thoughts. Montanabw(talk) 07:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
GregJack: Ditto on the legal cases, you are doing a great job, keep going! Montanabw(talk) 07:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC) Also - you can do Texas/Oklahoma area stuff, right? Montanabw(talk) 07:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
And Uyvsdi is very strong on the Southwest, plus (I think) teaches this stuff (yes?) So if Uyvsdi has edited an article listen up! Montanabw(talk) 07:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the positive comments. I know most about the Southern Plains, but these are all looking comparatively good, so I focus on the regions generally neglected (Great Basin, California, Gran Chaco, etc.). -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:07, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Moi? We all know where I'm from; I'm probably best with stuff on the Plains tribes, plus I've got some general background for the political/legal end in the USA. Montanabw(talk) 07:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

So let's treat each other with respect and go forward. Montanabw(talk) 07:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Categories in redirects

There are *so* many things that actually need doing. So many stubs, so many redlinks, for instance here: List of First Nations governments. Lenape still needs cleaning up, and Native Americans in the United States stills needs to be broken into readable articles. There are real contributions of information useful to the public to be made. -05:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Okay, found Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects and the geography cats are not maintenance cats. All the information about the reservations are in the articles not the redirects. -Uyvsdi (talk) 05:29, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
As per my comments in our other discussion about this on my talkpage, reservations are not governments and do not belong in tribe categories, there is a category for them and it's simple enough to categorize the redirect, and there's good reason for it, and accounted for it in the protocols you have just linked Wikipedia:Categorizing_redirects#Redirects_whose_target_title_is_incompatible_with_the_category. Similarly governments and not geographic objects and so a government article does not belong in e.g. Category:Geography of Lander County, Nevada, though the reservation title certainly does. And about comment that the land and the government and people are inseparable, that doesn't make sense to me in the cases of the Duwamish or the Shoshone or anyone else, where their reservations are a fraction of the full scope of the territory that they historically and culturally identify with; the same is the case with Canadian indigenous governments and peoples...as so expressly laid out by User:OldManRivers re the difference between his own peoples' histories and cultures and their colonialist-mandated "Indian Act governments".`Skookum1 (talk) 06:28, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Ironically, you picked probably the worst state to prove your point. Duckwater Shoshone Tribe of the Duckwater Reservation, Las Vegas Tribe of Paiute Indians of the Las Vegas Indian Colony, Walker River Paiute Tribe of the Walker River Reservation, Yerington Paiute Tribe of the Yerington Colony & Campbell Ranch, etc. are explicitly the reservations/colonies, the tribe, the government, the enrolled membership, the office buildings, the Headstart programs, and the rez dogs. The articles are completely compatible with their categories. These governments are formed by tribal members who drafted their own constitutions and by-laws on their own tribal lands. Also ironically, I wrote the overwhelming majority of these articles. No, it isn't a case of WP:OWN; if you actually wanted to add referenced information to the articles, contribute images, or otherwise build up the articles, I would be overjoyed. *Please* create an article or flesh out a stub—there's tons work that needs doing. -Uyvsdi (talk) 06:44, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
The articles are fine, but the titles in the categories are not. You were the one who brought out the protocol about using redirects on categories, and in that protocol it clearly says that titles that do not belong in categories by that title can/should have categories placed on redirects with appropriate titles for those categories. Any of the redirect titles can be fleshed out into an article anytime anyone wants. You using the edit comment "restoring article" when undoing my transfer of the reservation and geography categories form this government article is somewhat dishonest and ignores the very protocol you have invoked but are cherry picking. A tribe is not a reservation, and so does not belong in categories named 'reservation' or 'geography', it's very very very simple. So tell me, why are YOU spending so much energy undoing constructive work on clarifying and bringing order to categories and not writing reservation/colony articles yourself?? You have just burned up a whole evening's worht of my work on a picayune point that doesn't even have a protocol to back it up, not even the one you yourself invoked? You are in fact making a case for separating the reservation/geographic content from the tribe/government material. Waht's next? Merging all of them into the Shoshone articles and having all the categories for reservation, tribe, geography and language all on one article??????Skookum1 (talk) 07:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I do believe you want me to quit again, perhaps? Because I'm trying to make sense out of disorder, and am being fed nonsense and obstructive counter-edits in return. Saying "restoring article" as though I had vandalized it or wiped it or destroyed it is not WP:AGF nor is it either respectful of another's work nor of common sense. Are you going to wipe all my reservation/tribe separations in Washington and Oregon too? And on what basis? I did not harm the articles, and in fact brought them into line with the protocol that you yourself invoked, without apparently understanding.Skookum1 (talk) 07:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Not in the least, Skookum, just choose your battles; you know Canada stuff, the USA situation is really different, and frankly, Uyvsdi is right that you just can't do a one size fits all here... but Uyvsdi, can we just add multiple categories for now, so that wherever someone looks, they'll find what they need? Montanabw(talk) 08:04, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

The articles have remained untouched all that has changed is the way they and redirects leading to them have been categorized. All the redirects already existed, but top repeat an organization is not a geographic object for purposes of categorization. Nowhere near, not even close.Skookum1 (talk) 07:11, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem here, Skookum is that a "reservation" is often all-but-interchangeable with the tribal government, and other than for the really big articles, it's best to just keep them together in a comprehensive article rather than a bunch of content forks and stubs. I see your point, but I also hate crappy articles and prefer comprehensive ones. Hence, where there is a comprehensive article, multiple categories would fit. Montanabw(talk) 08:04, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Saying a reservation category isn't appropriate for an article like the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe of the Duckwater Reservation is absurd. There is no disorder. I have consistently disagreed with you, probably for years now, that tribes should have different articles for reservations and tribal government and culture and history (except in cases where the tribe is so enormous like the Navajo Nation); however, when someone has created separate articles, I'd done what I can to improve them. I've never suggested language and ethnic group articles should be merged. Yes, I restored the categories back to the articles to which they belong. Obviously we see Indian Colonies, Rancherias, and Reservations in different lights. They are geographic just as the cities and other settlements in the same categories are. -Uyvsdi (talk) 07:58, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
I find your attitude obtuse, and your reversal of all the work I've done, which *I* consider constructive and is in line with the protocol you invoked, to be both destructive and insulting. By having titles that are government titles in geographic;placename categories you are setting precedents that muddy those categories and the whole point of having categories and redirects at all. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Colville Indian Reservation are two separate articles, the former is a government article and belongs in a government category; the latter is a reservation article and belongs in the reservation category and in related geography categories; and they are separate articles for very good reasons. By your logic, they should be the same article and the former belongs in the reservations category because the word "reservation" appears in the name of the article and the organization. ONe is a geographic space, the other is an organization, they are completely different concepts. Your logic says that the tribe and reservation categories are the same thing. To me, that's nonsense, and so is your position. And you have been anti-AGF by reverting all my work on Nevada- were you also so destructive as to revert all my efforts in Washington and Oregon also? Why don't you go tidy some infoboxes instead of being destructive like you have justbeen? What a waste of f******g time. Good @#%@#$%@# night.Skookum1 (talk) 08:10, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Skookum, I'm saying this as your friend. Time to chill. You are right on Colville, but where there is not enough material for separate articles, they have to combine concepts sometimes and that's OK. But let's not get into attacking other people or attributing motive. You are BOTH good editors and care about this project. I suggest that if either of you edit on an article where it looks like the other has done some significant work, ping the other to be sure you aren't stepping on toes. Montanabw(talk) 21:44, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Insulting me isn't a very convincing argument. I have hardly been destructive, and I do tidy infoboxes all the time. One thing I did realize, that you actually might agree on, is that while some tribe/rez articles are in "Populated places in so-and-so county" not all of them are. Many are still in "Geography of so-and-so county." So they should be downcatted, except for Capitan Grande Reservation, which is completely unpopulated. -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
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